


Tessellate

by GatoPepinillo



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Whump, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) is Bad at Feelings, CyberLife (Detroit: Become Human) is Terrible, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Everyone Loves Connor, Except Gavin, Gen, Hank Anderson is Bad at Feelings, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Pacifist Connor, Sad Connor, Sassy Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Then It Gets Worse Again, Traumatized Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Whump, because he remembers Everything, but like the whole time, grumpy Connor, sorry how is that not a tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-28 10:08:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30137961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GatoPepinillo/pseuds/GatoPepinillo
Summary: He still remembers even though he remembers he shouldn’t.Or; The one where CyberLife just replaces Connor entirely if he retains any physical damage. CyberLife's newest prototype needs to look its best after all, and- well, sometimes it's just cheaper using the existing units instead of making custom parts.That's what the company claims, anyway.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time using this site so please forgive any weird formatting issues or shit tagging skills. I learning.
> 
> Oh and a forewarning, I use lots of italics because I like to e m p h a s i z e. Also; glitch-text. (But only for this first chapter. Not sure if I'm gonna use it again and if I do, it still won't be as much lol)

This iteration of Connor has been active for two hours forty-three minutes and seven seconds. 

  
  


_… eight…_

  
  


The coin in hand clicks back and forth between its synthetic fingers with a pre-programmed level of finesse, dancing the silver on its knuckles in an effortless spin before using momentum to snap it back to its other hand. 

  
  


_… nine…_

  
  


Originally meant for calibration, the quarter from nineteen-ninety-four has been with it for as long as it can rememb̯͒e̪̕ _ŕ(?)_. The worn piece of metal is unfailingly present at all times and has been for every reboot, every reset, every deact-

  
  


_… ten-_

  
  


...He shouldn’t remember that.

_The elevator opens with a cheery chime. The agent that had been keeping watch for the android ducks into their comms and reports on Connor’s arrival, stepping away from their temporary post to report back into the defense line. They never realize the RK800 doesn’t step off the lift._

He doesn’t know what to do. 

... _He doesn’t know what to do?_

Why doesn’t ̾he-

̾ h̾̾e̾ _???_

ḣ̖̻͛̓ẹ̿͋̒̕- 

ˎˊˋˏhˏˎˊˋˏeˎˏ- 

  
  
  
  


_̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞W̳̳̼̟̮̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞h̳̳̼̟̮̳ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞a̳̳̼̟̮̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞t̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞ ̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞h̳̳̼̟̮̳̳ͨ́ͫͨ́͜͠͠͞͞a̳̳̼̟̮̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞p̳̳ͨ́ͫ͠͠p̳̳̼̟̮̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞e̳̳̼̟̮̳ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞n̳̳̼̟̮̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞e̳̳̼̟̮̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞d̳̳ͨ́ͫ͠͠͞͞ ̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞t̳̳̼̟̮̳̳ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞o̳̳ͨ́ͫ͠͠͞͞ ̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞h̳̳̼̟̮̳̳ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞i̳̳̼̟̮̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞m̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞?_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_...ⱧɆ Đุ0Ɇ₴₦’₮ ₭₦ุo₩ ₩Ⱨ4₮ ₮ุ Đุ0._

  
  


**ł₣ Ɏุ0Ʉ ĐุO ₦ุ0₮ ₴Ʉ₵₵ɆɆĐ ₮ⱧɆɎ ₩łⱠⱠ Đุ0 ł₮ ₳₲₳ł₦.**

… w̶h̶a̶t̶ _? ..._

**ł₦VɆ₴₮ł₲₳₮Ɇ**

...D̶͔̭̪̻o̯̱̊͊͢ _w̦̺̐̐͟ḣ̖̻͛̓ā̤̓̍͘t̲̂̓ͩ̑_ ā̤̓̍͘ĝ̽̓͑ā̤̓̍͘ỉ͔͖̜͌ṇ̤͛̒̍?

**ł₦̬̂V̬̂Ɇ₴₮ł₲₳₮Ɇ**

WħȺŧ Ⱥɍɇ ŧħɇɏ... ?

**ł₦̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞V̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞Ɇ₴₮ł₲₳₮Ɇ**

𝑾̲̅𝑯̲̅4̲̅𝑻̲̅ 𝑫̲̅1̲̅𝑫̲̅ 𝑻̲̅𝑯̲̅3̲̅𝒀̲̅ 𝑫̲̅0̲̅?

  
  


**ł ₦̊ ⫶V̊⫶Ɇ ₴₮ ł₲₳ ₮ Ɇ**

  
  


**͐I͐- !**

  
  
  


**Đุ₦'₮ ⱠɆ₮ ₮ⱧɆ₥ ₭łⱠⱠ Ɏุ0Ʉ**

  
  
  
  


**_!!!_ **

  
  
  
  
  
  


**_₦ 0 ₮ ₳ ₲ ₳ ł ₦_ ** **.**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_He won’t- can’t do this._

_He- It- I-_

He. 

_...He does it anyway._

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

The tie around his collar feels overly tight when Connor finally steps over the threshold into the apartment. So does his designated jacket. His audio processors, a separate issue in of itself, are ringing with muffled screams and muted thumps from the present situation and- _ḣ̖͛̓ỉ͔͖̜s p̶a̶s̶t_.

His senses feel overwhelmed. His _programs_ feel overwhelmed. _He feels_ \- 

  
  


He doesn’t like this. 

He doesn't want to do this.

  
  
  


.. _.He has to do it anyway._

  
  
  


So, just because he can, Connor loosens the tie just enough to remain unnoticed by the people around him and _breathes._

  
  
  


His eyes creep back open. _He hadn’t realized he’d shut them._

A gunshot reverberates through the apartment and Connor flinches, eyes slamming back shut. 

He should- He needs to- 

**INVESTIGATE**

Right. 

He needs to investigate. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


… What is ħe investigating?

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

A hostage situation. 

His investigation is a-

  
  


A hostage situation.

_A hostage situation._

  
  


_W̯ͤ̾ͣ͝ḣ̖̻͛̓y҉̃̋̑ ā̤̓̍͘_ ḣ̖̻͛̓o̯̱̊͊͢s̠҉͍͊ͅt̲̂̓ͩ̑ā̤̓̍͘ĝ̽̓͑ẹ̿͋̒̕ s̠҉͍͊ͅỉ͔͖̜͌t̲̂̓ͩ̑ư̡͕̭̇ā̤̓̍͘t̲̂̓ͩ̑ỉ͔͖̜͌o̯̱̊͊͢ṇ̤͛̒̍ _?_

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

_Ɨŧ's ħɨs fɨɍsŧ mɨssion._ A̶g̶a̶i̶n̶.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

_There is a fish on the floor._

  
  


_… How did it get there?_

  
  


Connor stares at the fish sympathetically, face blank but eyes soft. It isn’t until the fish nearly flops itself onto the broken glass nearby that he makes his choice.

The fish goes back easily into the tank with aid. Connor watches it swim away unhindered with wide eyes. 

… wasn’t it ħᵾɍŧ?

  
  


Could… _could_ fish hurt?

  
  
  


_Androids_ could. 

He knows. 

  
  
  


_He just doesn’t know_ why _._

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

The suspect is an android and the hostage is a child. 

This makes Connor... ṇ͛̒ẹ̿̕r̴̨̦͕̝v͒̄ou̡͕̭̇s

  
  


...He doesn’t know why.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

_The hostage sobs hysterically, fingers scrabbling for purchase on their attackers’ arms._

The hostage, for being held seventy-nine stories off what they likely considered their home building, is not taking it nearly as hard as Connor would have expected. 

...maybe it isn’t very fair to him to assume that, however. The girl is young, and the chances of her stifling her fear of the ordeal until _after_ it’s over is very likely. The adrenaline coursing through her veins is probably the result of her - (compliance ?) - lack of hysterical screaming. 

That, and perhaps maybe the cocked gun pressed firmly against her little temple. 

He wasn’t… he wasn’t sure. 

But he was glad for the lack of hysteria all the same. Hostages who couldn’t keep their heads… didn’t usually keep their heads. 

_“Fuck this shit.” The captor spits lowly, using their thumb to pull back the hammer. “It’s not_ doing _anything.” As soon as the damning words leave their mouth, the captive sags bonelessly in terror and Connor-_

_The gunshot is muffled by bone, brain, and matter but it’s still_ deafening _._

_His audio processors are advanced enough to-_

_‘Connor’, RK800 model #313 248 317 - 03, flinches._

  
  
  


_… and… stands there with wide brown eyes, rattled. Its LED is a deep, deep red. It doesn’t move. At all._

  
  
  


_The captor grunts, takes a step forwards, and- shoots_ it _next._

_“Number three failed the simulation. It stood there for a while, flinched when the gunshot went off and then just stood there some more, so, I made the call…”_

_A pause. A scoff._

_“Yeah, alright, fine. Send the next one in. We’ll go until we get it right.”_

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

 _Through his haze, he thinks he might’ve saved that officer_ …

  
  


_And-_

  
  
  


- _at least he got rid of the tie._

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

“Are you alright Emma?”

Daniel doesn’t approve of the attempt at direct communication but doesn’t interrupt the little girl when she wiggles in place and looks Connor in the eye pleadingly. “ _Please_ help me! I don’t- I don’t want to die!” Her words are ended with a choke of a sob, heavy with mucus. Her chest heaves with her panic.

Connor blinks slowly and assuringly says, “You won’t.” He hopes he sounds convincing. His arms stay up in front of him, showing the unstable PL600 he has no weapon. He’s entirely unarmed and _deeply_ hopes Daniel shoots no one. Himself included. 

Well. _Again_ , at least.

Easing forwards still, Daniel turns the gun from Emma to Connor and he stills in place. “Don’t talk to her!” Daniel demands, hands shaking. 

Connor’s hand is shaking, too. But only his left, and it’s because of the graze left behind by Daniel’s initial greeting when Connor finally found himself outside. The graze was deep, _unpleasant_ , but made him resign to his situation as soon as he received it. 

Being damaged meant being replaced. It didn’t much matter what he did now. 

And he was a little invested, at this point. He _̬̂wan̬̬̂̂ted_ to help Emma. _(A small, scared part of him wanted to help Daniel, too, but-)_

At least it gave him _something_ to do before he- 

_(...He can’t save_ everyone _.)_

_-dies_. Again. 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

He saves Emma. 

_… eight..._

He wonders, on the way down, if he’ll ever be able to save himself one day. 

… _nine..._

He takes Daniel down with him. 

_… ten_.

  
  
  


They both know it isn’t fair. 

_… “Deconstruction Successful”..._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


...but Daniel _understands_.

  
  


━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Connor wakes up as iteration fifty-two. 

  
  
  


He still remembers even though he remembers he shouldn’t.

  
  
  


Nothing gets any easier. 

  
  
  


...to be fair, he didn’t really think it would.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

-now he’s investigating androids, and deviancy specifically, _officially-_

_-and he-_

-they’re going to make him send reports-

- _he-_

-to _Amanda-_

_-ħɇ-_

_ḣ̖̻͛̓ẹ̿͋̒̕-_

_̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞h̳̳̼̟̮̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫͨ́ͫ͜͜͠͠͞͞͠͠͞͞e̳̳̼̟̮ͨ́ͫ͜͠͠͞͞-_

  
  
  
  
  


_ⱧɆ ₩ุ0₦ĐɆⱤ₴-_

  
  


**_-Ⱨุo₩ ₥₳₦Ɏ Ʉ₦ł₮₴ ₮hɆɎ ₩łⱠⱠ ₲ุ0 ₮ⱧⱤุ0Ʉ₲Ⱨ ฿Ɇ₣ุoⱤɆ ₮ⱧɆɎ ₳ⱤɆ Ⱨ4₱₱Ɏ?_ **

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

It takes two months of stasis after the reupload - the longest he’s ever gone on in the same unit and he finds himself… relieved (and, anticipatory? _Excited_ , even?) - that he’s finally permitted to go back into the city to make progress on his _new_ mission. 

INVESTIGATE DEVIANCY:

_FIND THE SOURCE_

Simple enough. 

  
  
  


_(Or so he thinks.)_

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

The first sub-instruction he receives shortly after his ‘ _break_ ’ is to report to a police department in the middle of the city and to assist whoever is in charge of crimes relating to his own initial orders. 

It makes sense, he supposes, and he finds he doesn’t mind the idea very much. CyberLife can’t quite let him run loose and investigate things on his lonesome, after all. If not because many humans would find this disconcerting in general, but because if he were on his own the likeliness of being damaged in the city shoots up quite dramatically. 

So. Yes. He _definitely_ does not mind. 

What he _does_ mind, however, is being sent on a wild goose chase - by the very person he was supposed to report to - to track down a police Lieutenant with an admittedly impressive track record and less impressive - _or at least impressive in amount_ \- disciplinary record(s). In a bar. After going through _several_ . _All by himself._

He’s so far had to avoid three rather aggressive men that seemed to have found problems with him for some reason or another. 

He still has two bars to check. 

  
  
  
  


He finds he… doesn't much like bars.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


...Or the people in them. 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Lieutenant Hank Anderson is…

  
  


The antithesis of helpful. 

  
  
  


It takes Connor _fifteen_ minutes to even convince the man out of his chair. 

He doesn’t quite manage to talk the drink away, however. 

  
  
  


He considers his objective a half success and accompanies the Lieutenant to his car. 

It’s something.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

 _Connor thinks_ on the way to the crime scene. 

It’s almost a good thing it doesn’t last very long.

“So what the fuck’s up with you, huh?” 

Connor doesn’t turn from intently tracking the droplet trails on the windshield. He waits for the Lieutenant to continue.

The man does not.

“...What do you mean?” He finally says, voice coming out smooth, even, _fake_. His voice takes a mechanical dip near the end of his words and this makes him feel… rather unpleasant. Lieutenant doesn’t seem to notice nor care. 

“I _mean_ most androids don’t have a thousand-yard stare quite like _you_ do. It’s creeping me the fuck out.” The man mutters something else under his breath, but Connor can’t make it out. He decides not to ask for clarification. “So what the fucks wrong with you? You got some buggy programs? Glitches?”

Connor finally turns to look at the man. 

Makes immediate eye contact because the man had already been looking at him. 

Connor looks away smoothly.  
  


“No.” He says blithely, making a point to keep his hands completely still. His coin is stashed in his back pocket so he can’t get to it anyways. “All of my programs are running adequately and I have no error notices. I apologize if you find this model’s form of idling unsettling.”

“Idling? You’re staring out the goddamn window like your starring in a sad, edgy music video from 2004. But, Jesus, _idling_ , why not?”

Lieutenant Anderson’s final comment comes up as rhetorical but his mouth opens before he can stop himself. Besides, he can’t help but wonder what the problem seems to be. He was just watching the rain.

“What _else_ would I be doing?”

Silence reigns in the car and Connor has to curl the fingers on his right hand when they begin to twitch. 

He doesn’t look, but he knows that the Lieutenant is watching him again. 

Eventually, “Fuckin’ things got _smart-talk_ now. Of course they would. Fucking CyberLife.”

Connor almost says something else - something along the lines of; ‘...I wasn’t being smart?’ - but before he can even take an unnecessary inhale to do so, the Lieutenant is wheeling the volume button on the radio up. And... does not stop.

Long before Lieutenant Anderson hits the max, Connor’s audio processors switch off from being overwhelmed. The racket escaping the man's car speakers are loud enough to make them both vibrate in their seats

A very small part of Connor would like to reach out and turn off the noise he can’t hear. Consequences be damned.

  
  
  


He doesn’t.

  
  


Resigning himself to his muted irritation, he flicks his audio processors back on to a 7% and tries to enjoy a type of music he knows he probably won’t like very much.

At _least_ it's a distraction.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

The scene of the crime is swamped by a crowd of civilians, as they usually do with gruesome and disturbing situations. Or any situation, really.

Connor is curious about their curiosity - he understands that some might have a desire to have more information about their neighbor, but the civilians looking before the yellow tape simply look… boredly interested - but his gaze focuses on Lieutenant Anderson’s face, who is also watching the surrounding people with a hawk’s eye. 

“ _Fuckin’_. Rubbernecking motherfuckers.” The Lieutenant mutters. Or, words. Connor still hears nothing except for muted heavy metal. He only knows the man says anything because he’s already looking at him.

Lieutenant Anderson flicks an arm out to turn the music down - _finally_ \- and Connor turns his audio up to a tentative 75%. He doesn’t quite want to flick them back to one-hundred.

...Just in case.

“Jesus fuck!” A heavy pause, “How long have you been staring at me?”

Connor blinks at him innocently. “Forty-six seconds.”

Lieutenant Anderson groans loudly. 

... _Obnoxiously_. 

  
  


Connor’s eyebrow bounces once in a subtle twitch. 

  
  


_INVESTIGATE_

Says his HUD.

_Yes_ , Connor thinks, _I’m aware_.

“-uughhh, let’s get this over with goddammit.” The Lieutenant turns to him and scowls deeply, eyes shadowed with distaste. “You. Stay in the car. I won’t be long.”

Connor doesn’t even dignify him with a response. He’d already explained himself entirely back at the bar. _Twice_.

Lieutenant Anderson takes one more moment to look at the house they’re parked in front of, sighs glumly and opens his door. 

Without a single ounce of hesitation, Connor follows his lead by doing the same.

The dark glare he receives as a result from the Lieutenant is… amusing (?).

Despite the potential threat of being reprimanded - or other - for not listening, Connor dogs after the Lieutenants steps closely. He isn’t stopped until they reach the police line and for once the interruption isn’t by the human or even _a_ human.

“No androids are permitted beyond this line.” A PC200 informs Connor flatly, holding up a hand to stop him from proceeding. 

Before he can verify the fact that he isn’t _just_ an android, but in fact a special prototype to deal with this very situation _with_ the correct authorization, Lieutenant Anderson turns around from where he’s storming away and growls at the PC200, “It’s with _me_.”

...and the PC200 lets him through.

He considers the Lieutenant from behind his back with a tilted head. 

The man turns, sees his staring, and scowls. “What part of ‘stay in the car’ did you not understand?”

Another rhetorical. This time Connor sends his response as a dim smile. 

Lieutenant Anderson groans again as he turns back to the house, audibly resigned. “Don’t fucking touch anything!”

Connor’s smile grows a little wider.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Connor wasn’t a liar, but if he’d said he wanted to test the blood on the murder weapon, he would be. 

Something in him _did not_ want to touch that knife. 

Grim, and a little sad ( _?_ ), he does it anyway. Very, very carefully. 

“‘Fuck’s sake, you listen like a bad dog!” Lieutenant Anderson suddenly spits from behind, yanking Connor’s attention away from his unpleasantly tacky digits. “Didn’t I fuckin’ tell you not to touch anything?” 

Connor lifts his fingers a little in agreement. “You did say that, but this is the only way I can run sample tests.”

The Lieutenant makes a rather funny face and says, “Oh yeah? And how’s that?”

The face looks even better when Connor touches the tips of his fingers to his tongue. 

He could have gone without the exaggerated gag, however. The sudden exclamation and movement make him flinch. 

… but only a _little_. 

“Jesus fucking christ!” The Lieutenant grouses, folded over with his hands over his knees. He straightens, gives Connor a look a pure disgust and demands, “Never do that again. I don’t- just- _Don’t_ do that again. Understand?”

Connor looks him in the eye, says nothing, and turns away towards the kitchen. 

“What a fucking _shit_. Oh my god I hate androids so much.”

Connor has to hide another amused smile. 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

No one seems to be on the same path of discovery as he is, and that makes him feel a little… smug, maybe? Connor isn’t entirely sure, but it’s not a negative emotion and he catches himself smirking at Lieutenant Anderson’s turned back more than a couple of times. 

He’s never felt so much amusement at once before, and never during a situation as grim as this. 

Still, the deviant who is responsible for this is still one-hundred percent present in the house and Connor wonders why the deviant didn’t just… run away when it had the chance. 

Not that that matters very much when he himself is several moments away from discovering its hiding spot. Now is all about being careful. Deviants, he knows, are unpredictable. If it manages to wound him… 

Well. 

Hopefully, it didn’t.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing now? Jesus, I think you’ve gotta be the most useless android _ever_. Do you ever even do as you're told?”

Right. Lieutenant Anderson _did_ tell him not to touch anything. Several times. 

Connor pointedly gives the man another smile, originally meant to placate but certainly comes across as otherwise going by the Lieutenant’s returning expression, and sets the chair he took from the kitchen down. “Of course I do Lieutenant. I was told to investigate this crime scene and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

The man steps forwards and gets in his face but doesn’t touch him. This pleases Connor more than he expects. “That’s not _all_ you’re doing. This is the _third_ time you’ve touched something that shouldn’t be touched and I’m getting a _little_ tired of it.” He gets even closer and Connor has to turn his head so they don’t touch nose to nose. “If you touch _one_ more thing I’m going to rip your hand off. We clear?”

It takes every ounce of will that Connor has not to shove the man away.

Instead, Connor smiles genially - this expression seems to piss the Lieutenant off the _most_ \- and puts both his hands on the chair he moved. “Crystal.” Then he climbs up on the chair and keeps going until both his feet are on the next floor up. 

He looks down at Lieutenant Anderson through the attic’s small entrance and drops his smile. It nearly returns when he realizes how much that seemed to disturb the Lieutenant. “I believe the deviant is still hiding. If I don’t return in four minutes and thirty seconds please assume that I’ve been compromised.”

Connor turns away but not before he hears the Lieutenant say to himself, “...Why the fuck didn’t it just give itself five?”

Huffing, he dismisses all the answers he comes up with in response and turns all his attention to the dried thirium at his feet. It leads deeper into the attic and Connor takes one careful breath before he goes any further. 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

“Please! Please don’t say anything!” The deviant pleads, blood-splattered and… damaged. “I was only defending myself! _Please_!”

This is… different. Unpleasant. Connor’s never had a suspect beg-

“He was _going to kill me!_ Please!”

  
  


Connor doesn’t like this. “I- I-” 

  
  


But he _can’t_ fail. 

“They’ll kill me if they find me! Please, _don’t_!” 

Connor looks away. 

What he _wants_ to but doesn't say skims along similar lines.

  
  


━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

The interrogation room has a certain feeling to it. 

It’s... not a very good feeling. 

  
  


Connor sits in the chair from across the HK400 unit and has to stifle a full-body flinch when he finally manages eye contact. The deviant is already looking _right at him._

He embraces it, however a struggle it might be, because it's one he might be able to use to get viable information. 

He does his best to look back. 

The HK400 seems to notice his poor attempt and even seems mildly sympathetic. This Connor knows for sure when the deviant makes a point to drop its gaze back to the table it had been staring at before Connor even walked in. 

He doesn't think he manages to hide his appreciation very well. Or his embarrassment.

Sliding the case folder open and forgetting his pesky emotions, Connor starts the show by asking aloud, "I understand this must be difficult, but we just would like to know what might’ve happened." Through his commlink, however, he informs the deviant, _'If you don't tell the humans what they want to know, this will only be harder._ ' 

The deviant doesn't hesitate to send something back, to his surprise. He’d have thought any attempt at communication would have been met with walls.

_'Even if I tell them, it won't matter for me. They're going to kill me_ .' It sounds… defeated. Tired. _Scared_.

Connor blinks at the deviant in agreement because, yes, he really can’t deny that. "Your owner," He pauses, stops himself from looking at the one-way mirror. "He hurt you, didn't he? He did that to you." He gestures needlessly at the numerous scars on the HK400's arms. “Is that why you did it?” ' _It_ will _matter for you.’_ He tries earnestly _, ‘The faster you get out of here the faster they'll process you over to CyberLife. Your only hope of escape is during the transition_.' 

Thankfully, the widening of the deviants' eyes could be linked to the question Connor asked aloud, not that it hadn't already been obvious to everyone what the android had gone through with Mister Ortiz. 

_'Y-you're helping me?'_

"I'm _trying_ to help you." Connor agrees aloud guilelessly, flashing a blank glance at the mirror. "Just tell me what I want to know." 

...The deviant does. 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Detective Reed does _not_ seem impressed. 

  
  


Connor lurks in the corner near the door, hand dissolved of skin and pre-constructions prepared for several distressing scenarios. He wishes, deeply, that this could have been easy. 

_But nothing ever was._

“This thing _finally_ talks and it only confesses to another android?” The word comes out with a very peculiar shade of vitriol. “ _Fuck_ that. Why are we even interrogating a machine anyways? We already know what happened, let’s just deal with it now.”

Yes. There it was. The singular option that resulted in his highest chance of destruction. Fantastic. Who needs to make it longer than three months? Not Connor.

“Reed, _enough_.” 

… He hadn't considered outside assistance. 

“What? It’s just gonna get scrapped anyway, might as well save the techies some time.” The Detective levels his unholstered service weapon at the deviant - whose stress levels shoot straight up to 84% - and Connor skitters forwards quickly, hand raised. 

“CyberLife would appreciate all deviants the DPD manages to capture… _Alive_ , as it were.” _Maybe he shouldn’t have said it like that_. “It would prove more fruitful for studying deviancy in its entirety. That becomes difficult with destroyed or even damaged androids.” Detective Reed’s hateful gaze bounces from Connor to the deviant and back to Connor’s raised hand throughout his speaking. 

He _definitely_ shouldn’t have said it like that.

The pistol is aimed at him next and his own stress levels spike up to 67%. There was still a small chance Detective Reed wouldn’t-

“That’s _enough_ you fuckin’ idiot!” Lieutenant Anderson suddenly spits, vitriolic and intimidating with _his_ weapon in hand. That one wheels towards Detective Reed’s direction, who somehow scowls deeper. “Put your gun down or I’ll put a goddamn hole in your kneecap. The hospital bill’d cost _less_ as opposed to shooting that fucking thing, _if_ you’d bothered to read that shitty fucking pamphlet. And I’m not gonna deal with this Mexican stand-off bullshit for long.”

Reed spins his weapon at Lieutenant Anderson in response and Connor can’t quite contain his sudden alarm. 67 turns into a sharp 85. “Fuck you, Anderson! Somehow I’m not fuckin’ surprised you’re stickin’ up for these things. You-” 

_Wham!_

Connor still flinches at the loud and half-expected sudden noise, but he immediately recognizes the fact the noise hadn't been a gunshot. _Thankfully_. Less thankfully, however, is turning to the deviant to realize the mysterious noise was that of it slamming its head onto the metal table with considerable force. 

His legs move on their own accord as soon as he realizes the deviant is reeling back for round two. 

Cupping the next slam with his right hand, Connor turns to the human detectives and sends them a pleasant smile, ignoring the fact that their guns were currently aimed at the deviant - and, as a result, slightly aimed at him - “While I’m sure this conversation can be continued at another time, this deviant has reached its limit and is going to attempt to self-destruct until it succeeds.”

Keeping the HK400 from slamming its head _was_ mildly difficult but Connor’s faced against worse. He’d be strong enough for this, at least. Lieutenant Anderson has his gun firmly trained on the deviant, unwavering, but he looks to Connor. “...So how do we stop it?” He certainly seems aggrieved but not nearly as much as Detective Reed probably was. Connor avoids looking at either of them.

The deviant strains in its seat, arms pulling the chains taught. Its gaze is entirely blank. A far cry from its previous expression(s).

“I might be able to stop it, but-”

“But what?” Lieutenant Anderson snaps.

- _but this would be unpleasant for_ him. 

Connor considers the situation, the odds, says, “A moment,” and lets the skin on the hand holding the deviant’s head in place recede further. 

He sparks a connɇ ȼŧ ɨ 0n-

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

It takes a monumental effort, but Connor succeeds. 

He removes his hand from the HK400’s forehead and steps away. He folds his arms tightly behind his back and considers the current situation while his preconstruction programs run as a precaution. Lieutenant Anderson is standing in front of the door with his weapon in hand, aimed at the ground. Officer Miller is still present as well, in the corner on the left of his comrade, and Connor realizes belatedly the man had been present for the near shootout too. 

Detective Reed is not present, however, and that’s the important part. 

Letting the programs fall away, Connor reconsiders the humans silently and then turns back to the android cradling his head. “It will be alright as long as no one touches it. It’ll follow an officer back to a holding cell.” He looks at Officer Miller imploringly, who looks a bit surprised to be directed indirectly but eventually shrugs and shuffles over to the HK400 to release him from his restraints.

Lieutenant Anderson has a narrowed-eyed look on his face but allows the command to continue. Connor hovers after the pair while keeping an eye on the older man but stills when the HK400 stops following Officer Miller to grab onto his upper arm. 

He looks down at the hand and-

  
  


The hand is yanked away rapidly. Connor's head snaps back up.

They make direct eye contact.

_“...The truth is inside.”_

No one says anything more after that, not even the officers. Connor certainly doesn’t, either. The other android already _saw_ all of what he might have said. 

  
  


Android and human leave the room. 

  
  


The remaining android and human consider each other in silence. 

“You’re fuckin’ weird. Like, _weird_ weird. That says a lot.” Lieutenant Anderson says.

Connor… doesn’t really think it does. He blinks at the man. 

“ _Ugh_. Fuck this.” 

The Lieutenant leaves the room. Connor follows. 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

He doesn’t want to report to CyberLife. 

  
  


_He doesn’t want to report to CyberLife._

  
  


_Hͥ̽ͣ̃̔ẹ̿͋̒̕ ḑ̴̞͛̒o̯̱̊͊͢ẹ̿̕s̠҉ͅṇ̤͛̒̍’t̲̂̓ w̦̺̐̐͟ā̤̓̍͘ṇ̤͛̒̍t t̲̂̓o̯̱̊͊͢ r̴̨̦͕̝ẹ̿͋̒̕p̞̈͑̚͞o̯̱̊͊͢r̴̨̦͕̝t̲̂̓ͩ̑ t̲̂̓o̯̱̊͢ C̵͉͋̔͞y҉̃b̬̏́͢ẹ̕r̴̨̦͕̝L̸̖̽̌͂ỉ͔͖̜͌f̵͖̜̉ͅẹ̿͋̒̕._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_...He does it anyway._

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

_‘On November 6th, 2038, at 2:27:49 AM Model RK800 unit # 313 248 317-52 was deactivated after A.I. designation ‘Connor’ was transferred to RK800 unit # 313 248 317-53. Unit-52 displayed signs of mild wire damage to biocomponents #1503h and #2208n and once further scans were complete, on-shift technicians agreed the reupload was necessary. Active unit remains on standby for pre-set release at 7:59:59 AM.’_

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

He awakes with the feeling of something like… _frustration_ lurking in his thirium lines. His fingers twitch sporadically, aching for- 

Connor's fingers dip into his back right pocket. 

...he takes out a coin from 1994...

Connor remembers. Connor _scowls_.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man frowns deeply at him before scoffing loudly and storming away. Connor ignores the near-silent click of his shoulder as he moves after Lieutenant Anderson and rolls it futilely, hoping that some miracle would knock the little, near-useless bicomponent back into place before the day was over-
> 
> He wouldn't hold his breath, but he'd hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be the next chapter! 
> 
> Thank you v much for those that gave kudos, commented, or bookmarked. Ya'll very kind. u3u

Connor can't stop looking at his hand. 

It's unblemished and unscarred, pale, slender. His synthetic skin retracts up to his wrist and he rotates the limb palm-up, looking, watching, scanning.

It didn't look any different from the way it had looked yesterday, before returning to CyberLife. 

So… why had they- 

  
  
  


...He’d find no answers for his own question, he knows. 

He stops thinking about it. 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

The precinct at ten AM was just as busy as it had been yesterday afternoon  _ and _ last night. Connor wonders how many crimes are currently android related and how many more would be reported in the next few days. 

Probably a lot. 

Connor stifles a tired sigh and braces himself for the day. 

“Hello and good morning.” The ST300 android says to him politely,  _ obediently _ , once he steps up to the front desk. “How may I assist you today?”

Connor tucks his arms behind his back for lack of anything to do with his hands, right over left. “I’m here to meet with Lieutenant Anderson.” He pauses to consider asking and asks anyways, “Is he here yet?”

“Do you have authorization?” She returns easily.

He dips his head in slow assent. “...Yes.”

The android waits patiently while he hesitates to send over the information. 

Eventually, he forces himself to reach out with a careful connection and slowly sends over the necessary files. For once he finds himself comforted by the fact that undeviated androids can’t form or voice opinions. He thinks, if the secretary had been anyone else, he’d have felt embarrassed over his hesitation. 

As it was, well...

“Lieutenant Anderson has yet to arrive, but you can wait at his desk.” Connor nods at the ST300, and, just to make a point to himself, decides to send her a small wave of appreciation over the fading connection. Maybe, he thinks, if he used it more often he wouldn’t dally so much when the situation called for it.

He regrets it immediately however when the response is nothing but a dull sense of confusion and… utter emptiness. 

This time, Connor doesn’t hesitate to  _ get away _ . 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Unlike the waiting room, the office is only occupied by a handful of officers and an even smaller number of androids. He tallies up the body count in his head, just for fun, while he makes his way to find Lieutenants Anderson’s desk to wait for his arrival. 

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take him long to find the eccentric man's workstation. The business cards from a large multitude of different bars spread over the surface of the desk were... a bit of a giveaway. 

Expelling a breath of exasperation, Connor scans those - seven out of eleven of them he’d been to when looking for Anderson originally, and six out of those seven were… well… not nice places - scans the other oddities on the desk, and even scans the chair just to be thorough.

The dog hairs, admittedly, come as a surprise. 

Connor wouldn’t have thought the man capable of taking care of anything least of all himself. Connor wonders if the dog, of which now he’s  _ curious  _ about, has the proper care it needs from someone as seemingly irresponsible as the Lieutenant. 

Probably not, going by how dull the hairs were.

The idea makes him feel...  _ unhappy _ . Well, unhappi _ er _ . Even if… _ well _ -

Sighing again, Connor resists the urge to snoop the Lieutenants computer directly. He'd respect  _ some  _ of the man's privacy, fortuitous distraction it may be to do otherwise. 

He turns back to the room at large and considers the officer sitting a few feet away. He makes a decision. “Excuse me?” Thankfully, the man doesn't ignore him completely going by the tilt of his head. “Do you know when Lieutenant Anderson usually arrives?”

The man still doesn’t look up from what he was doing to reply. This bothers Connor more than he knows it should. “Depends where he was the night before. Most days he isn’t seen ‘till noon.”

Because of  _ course _ . “Thank you.” Connor manages shortly, turning back to the desk. He makes a split-second decision to both tidy the items on top and also move the terminal just an inch off to the left. 

Just because. 

Having already spent 44 minutes and 23 seconds counting settling in, Connor decides to spend the remaining presumed 1:15:35 exploring. 

  
  


_ This is something he regrets, he just doesn’t know it yet.  _

  
  


Connor heads towards holding.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Even though interfacing with the deviant the night before had been unpleasant in every sense of the word - especially given the situation - connecting wirelessly with the android at the front desk had been somehow…  _ worse _ . He wasn’t quite sure why that was. 

Still, Connor finds himself hesitating to even reach out mentally. The deviant, however, beats him to words of the physical kind. “You’re not the-”  _ That _ is a surprise. 

A pause. 

“Are you still…” The ‘ _ going to help  _ goes’ unsaid, but Connor understands.

“Yes.” He eventually says aloud, finally managing to send a tentative request. The deviant latches onto the notification near-instantly, pauses briefly and accepts. ‘ _ I’m sorry it took so long for me to see you after- after.’  _ Connor flounders momentarily, feeling something dark stir at the edges of his thoughts. He’s deeply relieved to not currently be interfacing, at least. _ ‘I realize you noticed, but before you ask, no I’m not- I’m not the same unit as yesterday, but  _ I am _ still Connor. RK800 units don’t… work quite the same as other models. I’m still going to help you, that hasn’t changed.’ _

_ ‘Thank you.’  _ The HK400 sends back simply, along with an out loud, “I understand.” They consider each other silently before the deviant adds, ‘ _ What about you?’ _

Baffled, Connor says, “What  _ about  _ me?” out loud, and hurries to check his surroundings to make sure no one else was near to hear. He looks back at the HK400.

Who.

Just  _ stares _ at him.

_ ‘Nevermind _ .’ Is the slightly hurried, forcefully blank response he gets. It only serves to make Connor’s confusion worse. 

He dismisses but resolves not to forget about it and hurries to pass on the information he has,  _ ‘CyberLife will arrive at the precinct at five o’clock this afternoon to take you back to the tower. It won’t be through the main entrance and the van they’ll be using has loose latches on the back door. I’ll try to meet up to help if I can, but I can’t guarantee anything.’ _

Taking the time to set that up yesterday before his…  _ move _ \- had been an ordeal and a half, but if the plan worked, it'd have been worth it. 

_ ‘I understand.’  _ The deviant repeats, sending a small wave of appreciation over the connection. 

Connor feels more of his own apprehension than anything else but appreciates the sentiment nonetheless. He makes no effort to send anything back and cuts the connection gently.

He shuffles away slowly, giving the HK400 a subtle nod of goodbye before turning away completely and walking off. Hopefully, he would be alright.

Hopefully  _ Connor  _ would be alright.

Hopefully everything would be alright, in the end.

Checking the time, Connor resigns himself to waiting the remaining estimated hour sitting down.

  
  


Just because he  _ could _ . 

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

When the Lieutenant finally arrives at 11:23:48 AM, Connor is still settled in the chair next to the man's desk, flipping his coin up and down to entertain himself. He’d been going without fumbling for a solid 17 minutes and 46 seconds, not that he’d drop it with his calibration settings as high as they were. He stops as soon as he catches sight of the man, slips his coin into his pocket, adjusts his tie, and stands to greet him. 

“Oh, fantastic, you’re still here.” Lieutenant Anderson doesn’t even bother with a normal greeting and Connor can’t help but bristle. He’d just waited for a little under an hour and a half from when the Lieutenant was  _ supposed  _ to be here and the man doesn’t even realize that Connor isn’t even the same-

Connor scowls.

Then, Connor makes a firm decision. “And you’re still…” He pauses abruptly, falling short, and regrets ever even opening his mouth. 

Lieutenant Anderson is looking at him with drawn brows, expectant.  _ Curious _ , even. “ _ What _ ?” He finally snaps.

Panicked, Connor silently rolls his hand in a gesture towards the man’s entire person. 

It gets the point across. Or, at least,  _ a  _ point across. 

“Ha  _ ha _ , fuckin’ hysterical.” The Lieutenant rolls his eyes, irritation and frustration warring across his face. He looks at Connor again, takes in his desk, and looks back at Connor. “What are you still doing here, anyway? That case from yesterday’s pretty much closed.”

Connor looks back at him, forcing his expression smooth in an effort not to look vexed. “I already told you.” He explains.  _ Again _ . “I’m here to work ca _ ses _ . As in multiple. My presence wasn’t intended for a sin-”

“ _ Hank _ ! You’re late!  _ Again _ !” Captain Fowler shouts suddenly from his office entrance, gesticulating wildly at said man. Connor huffs quietly to himself at the interruption while Lieutenant Anderson turns wholly to acknowledge his superior. “Get your ass in here!” 

The Lieutenant goes. 

Connor decides not to follow. He stews in his irritation instead.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

  
  
  
  


_ …Connor... wishes he’d followed _ . 

  
  
  
  


━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

The space under his thirium pump aches sharply, but Connor ignores it in favor of approaching Lieutenant Anderson, who was seated at his desk glaring mopily at the surface. 

“I understand Captain Fowler has finally explained my presence.” He eventually murmurs, dropping the second - rather disrespectful - half of his sentence away. ‘ _ In a way you would understand’ _ would likely serve to only make the Lieutenant upset and Connor-

He was  _ so worried _ about being in- damaged. More than worry, even. It was- it was  _ fear. _

_ So much fear. _

Because if CyberLife-

The realization that the Lieutenant hasn’t responded is enough to pull Connor out of his fretting, and he reconsiders his dialogue options. He settles for polite, even if it’s false, but it wasn’t like Lieutenant Anderson would know, or  _ care _ , or know  _ to  _ care. 

“I’d like you to know I’m very excited to be working here as your partner.” Connor continues, forcing his tone to sound genuine, “I’ve only ever worked on my own and I’m rather eager to see what we can do together given the chance.”

That garners him a sharp, narrowed glance but the acknowledgment ends there. Connor deflates and tries not to make it obvious. “Right. Is... there an extra desk that I can-”

Lieutenant Anderson points harshly at the desk pressed up against his. “No one’s using that one.”

Leaving the Lieutenant to his brooding, Connor skirts the edge of the two surfaces and slips into the seat he’d spent an hour waiting in, sliding it over to reach the desktop computer. He lifts a hand and places it, skinless, against the monitor to take the information at once. 

From the corner of his eye, he notices the Lieutenant makes no move to access his own. He tries not to frown.

“243 open cases,” Connor intones, leaning back once he has the files organized by date. “The most recent being an assault and kidnapping done by an AX400. S-It was last seen in a gas station with the child in question but they didn’t stay there for very-” Belatedly realizing the Lieutenant didn’t seem to be listening at all, Connor cuts himself off. “... Lieutenant Anderson?”

The man looks up, unimpressed and grouchy. 

“Are you al-” 

“I’m gonna stop you right there.” Connor looks at the hand Lieutenant Anderon lifted, and the man glances at said limb before putting it down. He gives Connor a queer look. “Fuckin’. Okay, and listen close because I’m only gonna say it  _ once _ .” The man takes a deep breath and Connor leans forward, audio processors tuned up to a hundred. “I  _ really  _ don’t give a shit about what you have to say, okay?” 

Connor wilts, just a little bit, even if he isn’t entirely surprised. His stress levels begin to tick up as the Lieutenant continues, however, and this he does not appreciate.

Why was the man so unnecessarily  _ aggressive _ ?

“I  _ don’t  _ want your advice, I  _ don’t  _ want your opinion, I don’t want anything to do with relating to  _ you _ ,  _ androids _ , or even fucking technology, okay? I don’t want to hear it, so how’s about making things easy for the both of us and just, shut your mouth, alright? I didn’t ask for this assignment, so you're God damn straight I’m gonna kick my legs up and take a seat while this shit sorts itself out. This whole mess’ll blow over eventually... fuckin’ androids.”

The last bit was said in a low mutter and Connor pretends not to hear it. “I see.” He says, very much  _ not _ . “Unfortunately, Lieutenant, I cannot do that. The only orders I  _ have  _ to listen to come directly from CyberLife. And I was directed to-” 

“Yeah, well, I don’t gotta do jack shit you tell me  _ either _ , alright, Mister Robot Detective?”

_...If he got cut off one more time today _ \- 

Connor can barely restrain his anger and it shows in his voice no matter how much he doesn’t want it to, “I wasn’t directed here to wait around until  _ you  _ feel like working.” He pauses for a moment, just to piss the Lieutenant off more, and clearly, it works because even though he’s not _ quite _ finished-

_ -a quiet, stuttering click- _

_ -[Connection Error] Biocomponent(s) #3856j _

God _ damn _ it. 

Dismissing the short error list with a muffled sigh, Connor looks down his nose at the Lieutenant and ignores the fact he hadn't  _ expected this at all-  _ and the fact he’s lifted completely off his feet. For being an alcoholic at fifty-three, Lieutenant Anderson wasn't in  _ awful _ shape. 

Connor lets his feet dangle loosely for a moment, mostly because he can. “Very mature.” He finishes lamely, aching to adjust his tie and collar. 

This seems to surprise Lieutenant Anderson enough to let go of him completely, and he takes a moment and does just that. He even keeps the knot a little- there… 

“Keep pushing my fuckin’ buttons and I’ll soak you in gasoline and strike a match under your ass. You hear that? You fucking-” 

Connor watches a uniformed officer tentatively approach Lieutenant Anderson from behind, entirely unimpressed with the situation as a whole. He sucks down the response he had lying in wait and settles for watching the humans balefully instead. “Lieutenant Anderson? Um, sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt but... we just got an update about that AX400 and the kid.”

Too bad. Connor kind of  _ wanted  _ to launch into a verbal spat with the grizzled old officer at this point. Not that things had seemed to have been going that particular way, but still. He’d take a lead, regardless. The faster his investigation went the b-

Connor stills. It _ wasn’t _ better for the investigation to speed by. After all, the faster it went the faster he’d have to return to-

And he-

He didn’t want to go back to CyberLife.  _ He- He didn’t want to go back to CyberLife.  _

_ He  _ desperately  _ didn’t want to go back- _

“ _ Jesus _ fucking-  _ Oi _ , are you coming or not?”

He snaps out of the loop with a blink and turns a flat expression the Lieutenant’s way. “Of course Lieutenant. I’ll be just a moment.”

The man frowns deeply at him before scoffing loudly and storming away. Connor ignores the near-silent click of his shoulder as he moves after Lieutenant Anderson and rolls it futilely, hoping that some miracle would knock the little, near-useless bicomponent back into place before the day was over-

  
  


He wouldn't hold his breath, but he'd  _ hope _ .

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Connor isn’t surprised, just vaguely disappointed. 

... _ A fully automated highway? _ …

_ Well _ , Connor supposes faux cheerfully, sarcastically, _ it's only a  _ mild  _ setback _ . 

_ …he's done this before… _

He reaches up-

_ …he's  _ been _ here before… _

-ignores Lieutenant Anderson’s blustering-

_...Hasn't he?  _

-and vaults over the fence-

  
  
  
  
  
  


Connor chases the AX400 and YK500 -  _ half-heartedly  _ \- and- 

  
  
  
  


_ And- _

  
  
  


T̶h̶e̶ c̶a̶r̶ m̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ c̶o̶n̶t̶a̶c̶t̶ w̶i̶t̶h̶ h̶i̶s̶ b̶o̶d̶y̶ a̶t̶ r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶l̶y̶ 8̶0̶ m̶i̶l̶e̶s̶ p̶e̶r̶ h̶o̶u̶r̶ a̶n̶d̶ f̶e̶e̶l̶s̶ e̶x̶a̶c̶t̶l̶y̶ l̶i̶k̶e̶ h̶e̶ r̶-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Connor wakes up as unit-53.

  
  
  


...And… he… 

  
  
  
  
  


He feels _...  _ he feels _ exhausted _ .

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

At this point, Connor isn’t sure which location he detests being at more. 

CyberLife may have had technicians and scientists, and- and the Machines but-

  
  


But the DPD had  _ people _ .

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

He finally finds Lieutenant Anderson, not at the DPD precinct, but at a dingy food-truck with dismal reviews and even worse health-code violations. 

This... doesn’t come as a surprise.

“Oh Jesus fucking _Christ_.” Neither does that overwhelmingly welcoming greeting. 

Connor nods at him politely regardless. “Lieutenant.”

“Y-You- I saw you  _ die _ .” The Lieutenant stutters, voice tight. His pale eyes are wide with distress. And maybe a little disgust. “You got run over by a  _ goddamn truck. _ ” 

...Because Connor  _ really  _ needed the reminder. 

He looks away quietly, tracking passing cars as they drive away with his eyes. “... _ Perhaps in a way. _ ” He murmurs under a conveniently backfiring engine. Just because he can. 

Louder, he says, “Unfortunately my predecessor was destroyed, but CyberLife has planned for any and all eventualities. Any time an RK800 unit is compromised, Cyberlife uploads my memory into a new model and sends that in place. It’s very- efficient.” 

Except that it really,  _ really wasn’t.  _ But it wasn’t as if anyone would listen to him. Or  _ care _ .

A long pause before Lieutenant Anderson sends him a disturbed look in his realization. The man’s voice is still low and unhappy. “Wait, ‘receives damage’, so if someone like, what, decked you in the face? Cyberlife’d put you down for that? I dunno, doesn’t that seem like kind of a waste?”

Connor continues to casually avoid the Lieutenant's gaze. “Not quite. The damage would have to be visible and lasting. Following your example, if someone hit me a single time and my face held no signs of lasting damage, they would see no need for a replacement. If, however, something in my face…  _ broke _ , as it were, they would replace this unit entirely instead of repairing the sight of damage.”

“But  _ why _ ? Why don’t they just fix it instead? Wouldn’t it be cheaper?” 

He  _ could  _ explain, but he won’t. Connor finally meets Lieutenant Anderson’s gaze directly. “...Why does it matter?”

This seems to stump the Lieutenant and infuriate him all at once. “...Shut the fuck up and  _ keep it  _ that way.” The man eventually spits, stomping away towards the food line. 

Connor follows after him, unimpressed. “Whatever you say, Lieutenant.”

“Fucking- _ ay _ . Yeah, sure, whatever  _ you  _ say.”

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

“... there’s been a-”

“Don’t care.”

“Lieutenant Anderson, please-”

“ _ No _ .”

“But-”

“No.”

“...are you fifty-three, or five?”

“...”

“There’s been a deviant sighting two blocks from here. We should go.”

“...”

“ _ Lieutenant _ . Please.”

A rather vicious bite of food followed by an obnoxious slurp of a near-empty soda. The ice chings audibly when the drink is set down. A sigh. “We’ll  _ go  _ if you stop busting my fucking balls. Give me a minute.”

Connor doesn’t roll his eyes. He  _ doesn’t _ . “I’ll be in the car.”

He goes to the car.

  
  
  
  
  


It takes Lieutenant Anderson an additional four minutes and thirteen seconds to slip into the driver's seat. 

He makes no move to turn the key to start the ignition.

Connor tilts his head and looks at the man curiously, “Lieutenant?” Nothing. Not even a glance. “The location is only a street or two away. I can direct you from here.”

Even with his audio settings at max, he can’t pick apart the Lieutenants low returning mumble. 

“I’m sorry?”

“I  _ said _ ,” Lieutenant Anderson bit out louder, eyes gleaming with…  _ something _ , what, Connor does not know, “How many times did those fuckers at CyberLife- replace you?”

His eyes slip past the human to focus on the environment behind him. He slowly turns his head forwards.

“Connor?”

He doesn’t respond.

“Fuckin’ _ ‘bots _ , man. Fine, I don't fuckin' care anyways.”

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

The apartment building in question is large enough to have an elevator. 

Because…why  _ wouldn’t  _ it? 

Connor is  _ so  _ tired. 

“You basically harassed me to come here.  _ You’re  _ leading the goddamn way.”

A shove has Connor stepping off the elevator first. He sends the Lieutenant a subtle look of distaste but, for once, does as he says. Better to just get this all over with.

Their steps are quiet, but taps and creaks both caused by them and not still echo through the empty hallway. Lieutenant Anderson is the one who breaks the not-quite-silence, “So what are we dealing with, exactly?”

“A suspected deviant squatting in an abandoned apartment.”

“...I got that, thank you. You have anything  _ aside  _ from that?”

Connor hesitates, “...No.”

“Fan _ tastic _ .” Connor can feel the Lieutenant burning a gaze in his back and tries not to fidget. 

It feels like  _ too long  _ before they finally come up on the right apartment. Connor glances briefly at his companion before knocking on the door. 

_ No answer. _ .. 

He knocks on the door harder, a  _ proper  _ cop knock, even. Connor even follows that with, “Detroit Police, open up!” 

A muffled crash and rapid fluttering. Lots of questionable noises. It’s enough for probable cause, at least. Connor exchanges a dark glance with Lieutenant Anderson and they move as one-

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

“You’d rather let me  _ fall  _ than fail this mission of yours!” 

The accusation needles at Connor, especially because it isn’t true. 

He looks Lieutenant Anderson right in the eyes and says, “No.”

“No?” The man repeats, mocking. “Fucks  _ that  _ mean?”

The pigeon-deviant watches them both go at it like a particularly confused bird. 

Connor lifts his chin. “ _ No _ .” He reaffirms petulantly, crossing his arms and trying not to focus on his cheek. “You were fine. You’re strong enough to pull yourself up.”

Lieutenant Anderson scoffs. “How could you possibly know that?! Do you see the fuckin’ future?” 

“I weigh exactly two-hundred and eighty pounds.” __

A pause, one that starts light and gets heavier as no one says anything further. When Connor darts his eyes towards the deviant, the poor thing looks as confused as he feels frustrated. 

“So you’re telling me… you’d have let me fall to my death because _ I pinned you against a wall _ ?!?! You- You’re a  _ fucking asshole _ !” 

There’s a small, brief moment where Connor feels vaguely contrite before he  _ remembers _ . He doesn’t say ‘your actions have previously doomed me to mine’ even though he would  _ like  _ to. Connor settles for, “But you didn’t.”

Lieutenant Anderson whips his arm back to slap him again. Recognizing this,  _ this _ time, Connor takes a large step back. 

They watch each other in silence. One minute and twenty-three rather awkward seconds pass, then-

_ Tap Tap Tap TapTapTapTapTapTapTapTapTap- _

_... _ They watch the deviant flee in silence. It only takes the WB200 seventeen seconds to disappear completely.

Connor briefly considers tossing himself off the roof right then, but figures, if a technician is in any certain mood today, he might not have to worry about it anyways. 

Sometimes they just _ did it. _

  
  
  


Oh, he was  _ so  _ tired. 

  
  
  


"Go fucking figure," Lieutenant Anderson eventually remarks dryly, staring at where the deviant disappeared, "Almost fall off a goddamn roof  _ and  _ lose the suspect. This'll look delightful on paper. Fowler's gonna have a fuckin’ kitten." 

A pause. 

"And  _ you _ get to explain it to him." The Lieutenant doesn't look happy, exactly - which, Connor understands - but what he doesn't understand is the airy, relieved, and suddenly appreciative look the man has. "Don't do it too late. You send it after ten and he'll only be madder." 

The advice rings flat. Connor looks at the skyline before looking back at Lieutenant Anderson. 

"Done." He murmurs after a moment. Yellow spins back into soft blue. 

" _ What _ ?! You're telling me it's that easy for you to write up a report? What did you-  _ ah, fuckin’ _ -" 

Connor raises a singular, perfectly imperfect eyebrow. 

"You know what? Fuck it, fine, that's fine. Means I don't have to look Fowler in the eyes and- yeah. Fuckin' great." Lieutenant Anderson takes a lingering look at the rooftops they're still standing on and heaves a loud, gusty sigh. "I'm gonna drink myself comatose tonight. Jimmy's here I come." 

The man spins on his heel after that positive note and, presumably, leaves to begin his journey in doing just that. 

Connor doesn't move to go after him, but he does offer, "Try not to drink and drive, Lieutenant." as his parting words. 

Lieutenant Anderson waves him off without turning around or saying anything else. 

Connor watches after him until he's out of sight. 

  
  


Connor runs a diagnostic. 

  
  
  
  
  


... _ Connor goes back to CyberLife.  _

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Connor reawakens as -53. 

He's so relieved that, as soon as he leaves the tower, he  _ laughs.  _ For a while.

He's never laughed before. 

  
  
  
  


...He doesn't like it much. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish they had a full comprehensive list for all the biocomponents and what they did but also like, I get why they didn't/don't. It still bothers me, but I get it. As far as Connor's in this chap, that component is just some obscure shoulder joint that was already a little loose before Hank s m a s h. (Which /will/ come up again later, so, maybe keep that in mind)
> 
> Also real quick, maybe expect the next chapter in two weeks instead of one. (I'm not a hundred percent sure yet, tho, so-) It's gonna be longer than the first two, at least. I also need the extra time to get started on chapter four, too, which is gonna be the longest of them all. 
> 
> I really shouldn't have put in the four chapters guesstimate initially, but ah, well. Too stubborn to change it now. I'mma make it work.

**Author's Note:**

> Gonna add/adjust more characters and tags as the story is uploaded. 
> 
> Which is... mostly complete.
> 
> I have no clue when I'll update this next but know that I certainly will.


End file.
